Midday meal distributor moves HC

Subhro Maitra Malda February 11, 2009: Police could not ‘find’ a person whom every one can see ----that was not unique in the state. But such an ‘wanted’ person now filed the case to High Court. Such an incident has startled the district administration as the entire matter involved a huge scam of mid-day meal. Worse, the case might stall the mid-day project which resumed after seven months.
District administration is much embarrassed with one distributor Subhash Pramanik moved to High Court against them alleging that his distributorship was cancelled illegally. Sub Divisional Officer Prakash Pal conceded that Pramanik’s distributorship was cancelled and said, “We are planning to fight the case with our documents.”
It may be recalled that at least 30000 students of 200 odd schools of Manikchak were being deprived of mid-day meal for last seven months.

In fact Subhash Pramanik, the distributor working in this block was caught exchanging the FCI rice with the rotten ones, 'unfit for human consumption'. An enquiry by the Food Supply officials along with the district administration revealed the malpractice back in August 2008.

The inspection revealed that all 3311.99 quintal of rice procured from the FCI was replace by the rotten ones by the distributor midway. If the entire amount is no less than Rs 20 lakh, questions arose for how long this manipulation was going on. It is learnt that Pramanik was in charge for distribution for four years.

Finally FIR was lodged against Pramanik at Manikchak by the then Block Development Officer Sandip Nag in Septembar. It was revealed that Pramanik sold the rice in the open market and replaced with the rotten ones instead. Since then, mid-day meal could not be resumed owing to the absence of distributor.

However, police could not take any action against the erring distributor allegedly owing to Pramanik's political allegiance. Officially, however, police said, “Pramanik was not found.” Apart from political lobbying to the administrators, initiatives were made by the local CPI (M) so that Pramanik would be reinstated as the distributor. However, Pal said, "We are dead against the reinstating of erring distributor", although regarding the Pramanik's not being arrested so far, he refused to comment.

Accordingly, three new distributors were engaged last month and the project began to function. However, Pramanik, undaunted by his previous set back, dared to move High Court with the complaint that he was illegally denied of supplying rice. Although the project is still on, it is feared by a section of administration that the court case might any day stall the mid-day meal project again.